


Stand on Ceremony

by BearlyWriting



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Knife Wounds, Rescue, Ritualised Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 20:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17814905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearlyWriting/pseuds/BearlyWriting
Summary: "A hand closes around the hair piled on top of Hunk’s head, cranes his head back until his neck aches. The point of the knife touches his throat. Soft, like a kiss."For the prompt "Used in Sacrifice/Ritual" for the Bad Things Happen Bingo.





	Stand on Ceremony

“We promise to do everything we can to aid in your evacuation,” Allura says. She’s seated at the head of the long, wooden table, and even though she’s dressed in her suit, rather than her dress, there’s something very regal about her. The Tazzarians don’t seem particularly impressed though. There are four of them, seated at the other end of the table. And Hunk knows that expecting aliens to look human is silly, but he can’t help but be disturbed by their odd, translucent skin, and the blank, white lenses of their eyes.

It doesn’t help that three of the Tazzarians have been staring right at him ever since they walked in.

Shiro shifts. He’s the only one of the paladins not seated at the table. At the beginning, he had been standing behind Allura’s chair, in a sort of bodyguard position that Hunk suspects Shiro had fallen into automatically. During the course of the meeting, he has moved around to hover at Hunk’s shoulder instead, watching the Tazzarians as closely as they seem to be watching Hunk, and clearly not liking what he’s seeing. Hunk isn’t sure if he should be glad that he isn’t imagining the strange looks or not.

At Shiro’s movement one of the Tazzarians tears their gaze away for the first time. Their eyes flicker up to Shiro - or at least Hunk thinks they do, it’s hard to tell when they have no obvious pupils - and then they turn their head slowly to face Allura.

“We will not be evacuating,” they say, in those strange, whistling sounds that make up their language. Shiro tenses, and he shares a confused glance with Allura over Hunk and Pidge’s heads.

The Tazzarians had sent a distress call to Voltron, specifically because their planet is breaking apart beneath them. Total destruction is still a little way off, but it _is_ inevitable, and the Tazzarians’ only hope for survival is total planetary evacuation. Even in the short distance between the safe patch of ground the lions had been landed on and the city hall in which they had agreed to meet the Tazzarians, the ground had been littered with jagged cracks, and wide sinkholes. It had been obvious that this is not a planet that is going to last.

It makes absolutely no sense for the Tazzarians to refuse the help that they had called Voltron for in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” Allura says, speaking carefully, her face schooled into a professionally blank mask. “We believed you had called us here for aid? If your people do not get off of this planet you will all die.”

The Tazzarian who had not been staring at Hunk - presumably the leader - nods their head. 

“That was our original intention, yes,” they say. For the first time, their eyes slide to Hunk. He feels strangely small beneath the gaze and Shiro bristles beside him. “We will not need an evacuation now, though.”

“Why not?” Allura asks, and Hunk is sure that it’s only years of diplomatic training that allow her to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “We cannot stop your planet from dying.”

“No you cannot,” the Tazzarian agrees. Those white lenses flicker. A muscle in Allura’s jaw twitches. “But the Yellow Paladin can.”

For a moment there’s only slightly strained silence, then Hunk manages to squeak out, “me?”

“Yes,” says the Tazzarian simply, and doesn’t elaborate.

The other Paladins aren’t happy with that response, Hunk can tell. He isn't really either - being singled out like this makes anxiety twist like a snake in Hunk’s stomach. 

“What the quiznak does that mean?” Lance snaps.

Allura puts an arm out, as if to press him back, but she doesn’t reprimand him, and Lance leans over her arm as if it isn’t there.

The Tazzarian doesn’t even bother looking at him. Those strange, milky eyes stay fixed on Allura.

“I will agree that I am...confused,” Allura says.

The Tazzarian doesn’t answer her, they stand abruptly - although Allura doesn’t flinch at the motion - shifting its weight on its four long legs and moving smoothly towards Hunk. Hunk leans back in his chair, uncomfortable with the idea of the alien coming any closer, but thankfully Shiro steps forward and blocks their way. The Tazzarian stops but they lean around Shiro’s bulk to fix their eyes on Hunk.

“Yellow Paladin,” they say and Hunk’s stomach does a strange little flip. He can hear the whistle of their voice beneath the translator. “You can save us.”

“No I can’t,” Hunk protests, weakly. He has no idea where the Tazzarians have gotten this idea from. Hunk is an engineer, not a geologist, and although Yellow is at home in the earth, there’s no way he could hold an entire planet together.

“I agree,” says Allura, her voice sharp. “If you do not wish to be evacuated then we will leave you now.”

Something’s happening. There’s a sudden tension in the room so thick that Hunk can almost taste it. It sends an awful chill through him. Something shifts at the edge of his vision - Hunk doesn’t think he would notice it, but Shiro goes tense as a bowstring and his eyes slide to each corner of the room. At the same time, Allura’s ears twitch.

There are more Tazzarians standing along the edge of the room. Despite their size, Hunk hadn’t noticed them because their strange translucent skin lends them an almost invisible quality in the darkness. Hunk’s stomach clenches.

Then, suddenly, lots of things happen at once.

There’s a screech of metal as Keith stands, knocking his chair backwards and producing his marmoran blade from somewhere within his armour. The Tazzarians at the edges of the room start forward, at the same time the leader presses something on the palm of his hand and glowing ropes of energy shoot out of the arms of the paladin’s chairs and pin anyone still sitting in them in place.

They snake over Hunk’s arms and tighten against his chest. He strains against them automatically but there’s no give, and when his muscles relax, the energy moves with them. Beside him, Pidge lets out a startled gasp that has Hunk’s heart rocketing in his chest.

Shiro, the only person still free besides Keith, lights his arm with a snarl and lunges towards the Tazzarian in front of him.

“Stop,” the alien commands. But Shiro ignores them, lashing out with his Galra arm and forcing the Tazzarian to dodge backwards to avoid the blow.

The Tazzarian evades him smoothly. It’s clear that he’s trying to get around Shiro, but the Black Paladin doesn’t let him, moving quickly to block each attempt. Keith is wielding his blade against two other Tazzarians, but there are far more in the room than the two of them can handle alone. One manages to get around Keith and press a small silver blade against Allura’s neck where she’s still pinned to her chair.

Allura goes perfectly still. Hunk has no idea how everything has gone so badly wrong. A simple evacuation mission and suddenly they’re tied to chairs, a knife hovering threateningly over the Princess’s pulse.

“Stop, and your friends will not be harmed.”

There’s a long moment where Hunk thinks that Shiro isn’t going to stop. His hand is still lit, raised up by his cheek. He shares a glance with Keith. Then he lets his arm die out, dropping to his side with a sort of reluctant resignation. 

The alien smiles. It looks sinister in the weird, translucent flesh of their face. Then they move past Shiro, grasping his shoulder and forcing him down into an awkward kneel as they do so. Shiro goes easily enough - Hunk is sure that the alien wouldn’t be able to push him down if he didn’t agree to go - but the glare he sends at the alien’s back is furious.

Once the Tazzarian is in front of Hunk, they lean down to inspect his face. Hunk shudders beneath their strange gaze. Then shudders again as one of their hands come up to stroke lightly over his jaw.

“You will give your blood to the Earth, Paladin,” the Tazzarian says. Hunk’s stomach clenches so hard that he’s afraid he might be sick. Ice freezes the blood in his veins. That isn’t good. From his place on the floor, Shiro snarls. 

“And you will save our planet.”

 

***

 

Hunk is stripped of his armour, then his flight suit, with cold efficiency. They leave the bottom half intact, thank God, but Hunk shivers at the sensation of cool air against his skin. The Tazzarians don’t seem concerned by his discomfort, moving around him without speaking, and barely even looking at him. He kneels where they direct him, and doesn’t protest as they lift his arms.

Bowls of something that looks like gold paint are set beside him. Hunk flinches when cold hands touch his chest, his arms, smearing the paint in smooth, straight lines over his body.

When they’re finished, one of the Tazzarian drapes something heavy over Hunk’s shoulders. It’s a robe. A rich, gold colour, and so soft that it feels almost like liquid against his skin. It spills across his back and pools at his hands. It should feel nice, to wear something so beautiful and extravagant, but his heart is pounding in his chest, and the material quickly sticks to his sweat-slick skin.

Another Tazzarian moves around him, and suddenly Hunk is looking into their strange, white eyes as they lean close to his face. He can’t help flinching away, but the Tazzarian just grips the back of his neck with one strong hand, holding him still with frightening ease. Their other hand comes up and moves quickly over Hunk’s face, daubing the glittering, gold liquid into the corner of his eyes, the outline of his lips and in long, straight lines down his nose and cheeks. It isn’t exactly unpleasant, but Hunk’s skin tingles beneath the impersonal touch. When their fingers stroke down his throat he has to choke down a gag. As soon as the alien moves away, the urge to lift his hand and rub it off hits him so strongly that for a moment Hunk is dizzy with it. He doesn’t - he’s sure that wouldn’t go down well.

More hands touch his head and he twitches away from them. His headband is removed with brisk efficiency. Someone scrapes his hair up into a bun on the top of his head. They aren’t gentle, but Hunk is too frightened to protest.

The Tazzarian leader steps towards him from where they have been observing the preparations. They grip his arm tightly in one hand, turning him a little so they can examine him with those disquieting eyes. Hunk feels blood rush to his face, feeling small and vulnerable in the grip.

“You are ready,” the Tazzarian says, and their hand presses over Hunk’s cheek, carefully avoiding the gold painted there. “It is a great honour to do this for us.”

It’s no honour for Hunk. He just feels sick. When the alien drags him upright, Hunk has to clench his teeth against the awful churning of his stomach. Then, Hunk stumbles over the hem of the robe as the Tazzarian forces him forwards, sliding on the slippery material as if it were water. Only the bruising grip on his arm keeps him upright.

They move quickly. So much so that Hunk can barely keep up. Through long, winding corridors - stumbling over the uneven floor, riddled with jagged cracks and holes that seem to grasp at Hunk’s bare feet as he struggles over them. The Tazzarian doesn’t seem to even notice, gliding over the earth as easily as if they were on flat ground.

Their fingers don’t leave his arm once.

Eventually, they emerge outside into the dusky red air. The ground is even more uneven out here, without the protection of the building, and the hem of Hunk’s robe is dragging in the dirt. A little further in the distance, Hunk can see a vast sinkhole, churning with mud and debris. Closer than that, Hunk’s friends are kneeling on the jagged Earth. They’re hands are bound behind them and a Tazzarian stands behind each of them - each with a weapon in their hands. When Hunk stumbles towards them, their heads come up almost as one.

“Hunk!” Lance cries. He jerks, as if he wants to rise to meet him, but the Tazzarian behind him shifts and Lance goes abruptly still.

“Lance,” Hunk manages to choke out, as the Tazzarian forces him past his friends.

Lance makes a small, frightened sound. From her place beside him, Pidge snarls, turning to shoot a dark look at the Tazzarian behind her, before her eyes find Hunk again. 

“This is stupid,” she says, made bold by her anger. “This isn’t going to save your planet.’

The Tazzarian dragging Hunk comes to an abrupt stop at the lip of the sinkhole. Now that he’s closer, Hunk can see that there’s a sort of filmy crust on top, shot through with little spider web cracks. The rest of the Paladins must have a good view of it as well, from where they’re kneeling.

Allura shoots Pidge a wary glance, but she speaks too, lifting her chin and saying: “She is right. This will not save you. If you stop this now, we will still help you evacuate.”

The Tazzarian leader makes no sign that they’ve even heard her. They turn, dragging Hunk by the arm they’re still holding. To his surprise, Hunk comes face to face with a crowd of strange, flat, translucent faces. The rest of Tazzaria must have gathered for the ritual. Beneath their combined gaze, Hunk feels like an exposed wound, raw and vulnerable, and he wants to drag the robe closed over his bare chest. 

“Fellow Tazzarians,” the leader begins. His voice is clear and loud - the other Tazzarians curiously silent. There’s no murmur of a crowd. No sound other than the distant creaking of the planet. “We have been granted a gift.”

Hunk is pushed forward a step. He keeps his eyes on the ground, afraid to meet any of the aliens’ gazes.

“The Yellow Paladin has come from the sky.” They thrust one of their long arms upwards. “Now we will return him to the ground.”

“Don’t worry Hunk,” Shiro says, in a voice loud enough to be heard even over the Tazzarian speaking right in Hunk’s ear. Hunk’s eyes slide to the Black Paladin. There’s cold fury on his face that steals the breath from Hunk’s lungs. “We’re going to get you out.”

Hunk would very much like to believe him. The Tazzarian behind Shiro lands a heavy blow on the back of his head and Shiro falls forward with a bitten-off sound of pain and goes silent.

“Once we have returned his blood to the Earth, our planet will be saved,” the Tazzarian says, ignoring Shiro completely.

Hunk is dragged back around to face the sinkhole. Then the Tazzarian moves until they’re both balancing precariously on the lip. Hunk tries to glance backwards at his friends, but he’s suddenly forced forward, out onto the thin film that covers the churning mess of the sinkhole beneath it, and he has to struggle to keep his footing.

As soon as he steps out onto it, Hunk begins to sink. Beside him, the Tazzarian moves over the thin surface as if it were solid ground, the strange, six toes on their wide feet and their four legs, distributing their weight far more evenly than Hunk’s ever could. It’s only because of the Tazzarian’s strong grip on his arm that Hunk doesn’t fall through and disappear entirely.

Finally they come to a sort of solid island at the centre of the sinkhole. Hunk heaves himself up onto it, but somewhere in the back of his mind he can’t help thinking that maybe it would have been better if he’d sank. The Tazzarian crouches over him, forces him to kneel, and slides the robes off of his shoulders. Exposed to the cool air, Hunk can’t help shivering. His eyes find his friends. They seem inordinately far away, even though Hunk is still close enough to see their faces, to see Keith’s narrowed eyes, Lance’s expression of horror, Allura’s fury.

His own face must be pale beneath the gold paint.

The Tazzurian stands. A silver knife is drawn, flashing in the red light, and Hunk’s blood runs cold. A hand closes around his wrist, stretching his arm out away from his side, baring the soft flesh inside his arm and the wide stretch of his chest. 

“Please.” The word slips out of his mouth between panted breaths, small and wretched. “Please don’t do this.”

He might as well not have said anything.

“Lend us your strength Yellow Paladin,” the Tazzarian says, and their voice is both projected out at the crowd, and strangely intimate in Hunk’s ear. There are goosebumps all over Hunk’s skin. The sharp point of that knife is brought against the gold painted on Hunk’s arm, pricking painfully.

Hunk tries to breathe but finds the air has deserted him. His eyes find Shiro’s, dark as a storm in the Black Paladin’s face. Then the Tazzarian presses down firmly and drags the knife through the flesh of Hunk’s arm. The skin parts like butter. Blood surges to meet the wound. Hunk can’t look, but he can feel it welling hot, and thick, and slippery, gushing out of his arm and slicking his side, splattering to the earth in fat crimson droplets.

Someone screams. At first Hunk thinks the sound has come from him, torn itself free of his chest. His eyes are still locked on Shiro’s, and he knows his mouth is open, loosened with shock and pain. The knife in his arm burns, ripping through flesh and veins and nerve endings, setting his whole arm alight with the agony. His vision blurs.

It wasn’t Hunk though - it was Lance. He’s still screaming now, yelling Hunk’s name with a terrifying desperation. Beside him Pidge is yelling too, her face screwed up, red and creased, and there are already tears on her face. Hunk sees them all as if through dirty glass, smeared and distorted, their voices reaching him as if from very far away.

The knife pulls free soundlessly - or if it makes a sound Hunk can’t hear it over the roaring of his own heart in his ears. The Tazzarian holds his arm outstretched for a few more heartbeats before letting it drop unceremoniously against his side and moving to the other one.

It hurts less this time around. He must be going into shock. The world is small and grey around him. Things moving without any reason: Shiro trying to struggle to his feet, Lance pressed against the ground by one of the Tazzarian’s huge feet, Allura sitting straight-backed and still. The Tazzarian is speaking right by Hunk’s ear, but he can’t make any sense of the words anymore than he can understand the rapid movement of Pidge’s mouth as she strains against her bonds.

A hand closes around the hair piled on top of Hunk’s head, cranes his head back until his neck aches. The point of the knife touches his throat. Soft, like a kiss.

_This is it_ Hunk thinks, and lets his eyes slide shut against his awful reality.

But the knife never presses in. There’s a roar so loud that it seems to shake the entire planet. It cracks the earth beneath Hunk’s knees, throws the Tazzarian off balance, the knife slicing a little cut into Hunk’s neck as it whips away from him. Hunk is pitched forward, face first into the heaving dirt, too weak and startled to catch himself, or even cry out. It clogs his nose and mouth, burns in the open wounds on his arms. He can’t breathe.

For what feels like an eternity, Hunk thrashes in the dirt. Perhaps the planet really is taking him, accepting his life in exchange for its own. Hunk is too tired and hurt to fight, to even protest.

Then, strong arms close around his waist and haul him up through the mud. That first breath of fresh air is like a long drink after a desert, he gulps, greedily, too dizzy to care about the pain in his arms, or even the worried faces staring down at him.

Something presses hard against his arms. It hurts badly enough that Hunk tries to protest, but the words don’t come out right. The arms around him shift, and then suddenly he’s moving, being half-dragged, half-carried out of the dirt. It makes his stomach churn queasily.

“-unk! Hunk!”

Hunk blinks his eyes open. They’re encrusted with filth and it hurts to peel them apart, but he manages it. Shiro’s pale face swims right above him.

“It’s OK, Hunk, we’re getting you out,” he says, and his voice sounds clogged with dirt as well.

 

***

 

Hunk doesn’t remember much after that. Just flashes, as if he’s trying to recall a dream. Shiro and Allura had carried him onto the Black Lion, Allura holding tight to the wounds on his arms the whole time, and they’d flown back to the castle quicker than Hunk had thought possible - or maybe that was just the fact that Hunk had been in and out of consciousness.

They hadn’t even had to worry about Yellow - after he had saved Hunk, he had trailed the Black Lion so closely that Shiro had been worried about a collision.

Then they had put him in a healing pod. Lance tells him, later, that there had been so much blood soaking Hunk’s skin, slicking Shiro’s armour, and dripping off of Allura’s hands, that they had been worried that the healing pod wouldn’t be enough.

But when Hunk emerges, there are only two thin white lines running the length of both arms to show for his wounds. The other Paladins are waiting for him, of course, and Hunk feels warmth in his chest for the first time since they had landed on Tazzaria.

“Hunk,” Lance cries, throwing himself at his friend, and wrapping his arms around him in an almost-too-tight hug. 

Pidge launches herself at him too, tears in her eyes, and Hunk hugs them both back just as tightly. He can feel Shiro’s hand on his shoulder, Allura’s arm around his back, even Keith, pressing up against his side. Hunk isn’t ashamed to say he cries.

When they finally break apart, Lance offers him a watery smile and says, “Welcome back buddy.”

“Thanks Lance,” Hunk says, with a smile of his own.

“We’re so sorry Hunk,” says Allura. Her face is soft and pained. Shiro, standing beside her, looks almost as guilty. “We never should have allowed this to happen.”

“It’s alright.” Hunk is startled by the apology. He certainly doesn’t need one. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Then, “What about the Tazzarians?”

Allura’s face twists with badly concealed anger. But she sighs, smooths her expression into something less hostile, and says: “I don’t believe it is right to punish an innocent planet for the mistakes of their leader. If it’s OK with you, then we will keep our promise to aid their evacuation.”

Hunk smiles.

“Of course we should.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! :)
> 
> I have a tumblr at [bearly-writing](https://bearly-writing.tumblr.com/) if you fancy dropping by for a chat, or to request a Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt!


End file.
